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“Recipients will no longer be required to make a subjective judgment on whether jobs were created or retained as a result of the Recovery Act. Instead, recipients will more easily and objectively report on jobs funded with Recovery Act dollars “

GAO’s recommendation to “[make] more explicit that ‘jobs created or retained’ are to be reported as hours worked and paid for with Recovery Act funds.”

Highlights of memo:

Recipients will now report job estimates on a quarterly, rather than cumulative, basis.

Recipients will no longer be required to sum various data on hours worked across multiple quarters of data when calculating job estimates. This update aligns with GAO’s recommendation to “standardize the period of measurement for [Full Time Equivalents].”

Reporting for Jobs is only for the Quarter and related to RD ARRA Funding in that quarter!

A job created is a new position created and filled, or an existing unfilled position that is filled, that is funded by the Recovery Act;

Job Retained

A job retained is an existing position that is now funded by the Recovery Act.

Using the definitions above, recipients must estimate the total number of jobs that were funded in the quarter by the Recovery Act. A funded job is defined as one in which the wages or salaries are either paid for or will be reimbursed with Recovery Act funding.

Total Hours in a Work Week - Enter the number of weekly hours expected to be worked during the reporting quarter. This input is limited to 100 hours as a data validation tool based on a typical work week of 40 hours.

Total Hours Worked (For Reporting Quarter) - Enter the total number of hours actually worked during the entire reporting quarter.

Total Award Amount - Enter the total (L)oan, (G)rant, or (C)ontract Amount.

Cumulative Amount of Federal ARRA Expenditure - Enter the total cumulative Amount of Federal ARRA Expenditures. Keep in mind this is only for (L)oans and (G)rants.

Data Check: - These fields are formulas that are protected and require no user input. They are intended to alert the enduser of possible data input errors based on the criteria set forth below:

Jobs Over Reported- Purpose: To verify that each job reported per quarter would be paid at minimum wage or above based on the Award Amount (adjusted to a quarterly amount). Flagged reports indicate job numbers that would result in less than minimum wage per job.Report flagged if Job Count multiplied by $3770 < Award Amount divided by 4. The $3770 = ($7.25 minimum wage rate) x (40 hours per week) x (13 weeks). The Award Amount is divided by 4 for the 4 quarters in the year.Suggested Action: Too many jobs reported using minimum wage as lowest amount of money a job can be paid. Job count should be discussed with recipient.

Jobs Under Reported - Purpose: To identify records which report a zero job number and report Receipts (contracts) or Expenditures (grants) that exceed $500,000

Report flagged if Job count = 0 and receipt/expenditure > 500,000Suggested Action: Receipt/Expenditure in the report is over $500K but reporting a zero job number. Agency may consider contacting recipient.

OMB has become focused on the quality of the Narrative Descriptions for the following fields in the Daily Extract (FR.gov):

Award Description

Project Description

Description of Job Created (If Jobs Created > 0 )

Infrastructure Purpose and Rationale

These fields must include narratives containing the following attributes:

Explanation of all abbreviations or acronyms that may be unfamiliar to the general public

Use of complete sentences

Adherence to instructions and examples for narrative fields in OMB and agency-specific guidance

Taken in conjunction, entries in the “Award Description” and “Quarterly Activities/Project Description for Prime and Sub-recipients” fields must provide, at a minimum, clear and complete information on the award’s purpose, scope and nature of activities, outcomes, and status of activities

OMB Guidance is available here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/memoranda/2010/m10-34.pdf